New England Ruins. Just what is the fascination with all things crumbling and overgrown? Christopher Woodward's In Ruins attempts to provide an answer, positing not unsurprisingly that ruins are conscious expressions of our desire to feel at one with our history, visual reminders of a past that is usually buried too deep. Most people, myself included, get a perverse satisfaction from ruins, and the more ruinous the better. As Woodward notes, the 'well-kept' ruin, with its neatly shored up walls, explanatory plaques, trimmed undergrowth and warning signs, seems somehow inauthentic, robbing us of the pleasure of 'stumbling across' something unknown. Even though the 'restoration' might bring us physically closer to the site's pre-ruined state, the incursion of others somehow robs us of the thrill of discovery, however delusional that thrill might be.

Whether it's rusting machinery and industrial wastelands, or ivy-draped columns, ruins are undeniably romantic. It's hard to imagine now, but the vast Avebury stone circle in Wiltshire was only discovered in 1648 by John Aubrey, while out hunting one day. Many of the 98 stones, which enclose a 28-acre area (and the entire village), were buried in the centuries after the site fell into disuse by pagan-fearing villagers. Presumably, forest also blanketed the site (today, national coverage is only 8.5%, source: Forestry Commission. More on medieval forest history). Nonetheless, most considered Avebury's stones a nuisance, and they were broken up to clear land for farming and then used to build houses. The Alexander Keiller Museum was founded by its namesake, one of the first to seriously restore the site.

A short history of telephone box vice cards (via boing boing). In London's West End, the 'carders' are often followed by grim-faced old ladies who methodically tear down their hard work, yet don't actually throw the gaudy artwork away. As a result, phone boxes are frequently carpeted, rather than wallpapered, with lurid pornography.